Laddie, Lie Near Me
by ABadPlanWellExecuted
Summary: A freezing cold beach is as good a place as any to clear the air.
1. Long Have I Sought Thee

**A/N: I know, I know, it's been done a million times before. Oh well, here's a million-and-one. **

**The title's from the song Laddie, Lie Near Me, of which I am rather fond. (Note: NOT a song!fic!)**

**Rated Teen for mild profanity.**

The Doctor stood on a chilly, wind-swept beach in Norway and watched Rose break apart.

There were no tears; her grief was dry and strangely empty. She dropped his hand, and he thought of satellites that finally slip out of orbit and plummet to the ground. She curled into herself, and he thought of ancient stars collapsing, all their fuel consumed at last.

As much as he might need her to keep him steady in this new world, in this moment, she didn't have anything left to give. He'd never seen her look so tired.

"Rose" he said, instinctively reaching for her, "I'm the same man. He and I, we're the same person. I promise."

Eyes closed, she shook her head. "I know." She rubbed a hand over her face. "That doesn't really help, though. That just makes it worse."

He dropped his hand. "Worse how?"

She opened her eyes and looked at him, her gaze level. "Because. That's the point. You're exactly the same. Except for one thing."

The Doctor felt his mouth go dry. "And what one thing is that?"

She shook her head again. "We need to get going. Last time we were here, there was a little fisherman's lean-to near where the road ends." She straightened up and took a deep breath, resigned to do whatever had to be done, and he thought, oh, yes, there she is—the girl who could cross the universe all on her own, if she had a mind to.

"You can keep an eye on my mum while I walk to town," she told him as she started hiking across the sand.

"Can't you just call on your mobile?" he asked.

"No reception."

"What about your super-phone?"

Rose sighed. "It's not so super in this universe. Just works like a regular phone."

"Oh, right," he muttered, scratching the back of his neck. "Sorry about that. We'd need to alternate the transcomm frequency to account for the different universal resonance. I can fix it for you, when we get to London."

Rose ignored him. "Mum," she called to Jackie, who was some distance away, waiting for them. "I think there's a place for you to wait up that way. Let's go have a look."

"All right, but go on ahead. It's going to take me longer in this sand," called Jackie.

Rose just shrugged. "'Kay," she said and started walking again.

The Doctor glanced back at Jackie and saw her surreptitiously gesture toward her daughter once Rose wasn't looking.

Well. He could take a hint.

The Doctor turned and quickly fell into step beside Rose, hiking through the damp, hilly sand. "The one thing—is it the TARDIS?" he asked after a moment, once they were out of earshot.

"No."

"Because I really do think I can grow another one."

"It's not the TARDIS."

"It's the one heart, then? Don't want to watch me to age?"

She shook her head. "Don't be daft."

"Rose," he said, stretching out his arm to catch her shoulder. She stopped. "It's not what he said, is it? That I'm full of blood and anger and revenge? That I shouldn't have destroyed the Daleks?"

She turned to him and rolled her eyes. "No, but while we're on the subject, that was some serious, first-class, Freudian, self-hatred bullshit." He winced at the profanity, but she didn't seem to notice. "I mean, honestly, what was he planning on doing with the Daleks, send them to finishing school?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, trying for a joke. "Might have been a good idea. Teach them to say 'If you don't very much mind, I'm going to exterminate you now.' It could be a nice change, don't you think? Ooh, and maybe train them to carry wee little tea trays."

Her lips curved reluctantly, and he was tempted to ask if that was a smile. But before he had the chance, she shook her head.

"Look, I know you've never been a companion to yourself before," she said. (He decided not to correct her—oh, the fights that had broken out whenever he'd run into his other selves!) "But see, you can only really listen to about a third of the things the Doctor says."

His mouth popped open. "What! That's not true!"

She shrugged. "First rule of being a companion. Could have asked Donna or Martha or Jack—they'd all tell you the same thing."

"The first rule is 'Don't wander off!'" he fumed. "And my companions listen to more than a third of…wait." He stopped suddenly and frowned. "Actually, that explains a lot."

"Yep." Rose started walking again. It was cruel, she thought. She was being cruel, to him of all people. But she couldn't seem to help it. All she could see when she closed her eyes was a hopeless parade of parallel worlds with the sonic screwdriver at the end of it, lying in a puddle where it had fallen from his dead hand. All she could hear was the sound of him leaving her in the end, after all.

They walked on in silence for a time.

"Will you tell me eventually?" he ventured to ask.

Rose just shrugged. "Can we maybe not talk about this? I just want to get to town and arrange a ride to London." He started to object, but she raised an arm, pointed to a rundown lean-to standing where the beach stopped and the gravel road began. "Here it is. You two can stay dry in there if it starts to rain. Mum," she called. "You and the Doctor wait here, all right? I'll get to town and ring Pete to get us some transpo back home. Then I'll find a car and come pick you up."

Jackie caught up with them, puffing as she walked through the deep sand. "Sweetheart, take the Doctor with you," she said after she had caught her breath. "I'll be fine waiting here by myself."

Rose shook her head. "We don't know what's out here. No" she said, holding up a hand when Jackie started to speak again. "I'm the trained Torchwood field agent, you're the mum, remember? Which is why I told you not to use the Dimension Cannon in the first place," she muttered. "Lucky you didn't bloody well end up in Brazil."

"Without a passport," chimed the Doctor, hoping to make her smile again. But Rose seemed determined to ignore him.

"I should be back in about two hours. See you soon." Thrusting her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she started off down the road alone.

Jackie watched her go and then sighed. "Well, I s'pose we should make ourselves comfortable, then." She turned to poke her head in the shack. "Eurgh, smells a bit like fish gone off in here," she complained. "Think we're better off waiting outside." She tested her weight against the exterior wall before leaning back against it. "You alright, sweetheart?" she asked him quietly.

The Doctor didn't answer. All he could do was stand in the frigid Norwegian air and watch the figure of Rose, walking away from him.

_tbc_


	2. Dear Has It Cost Me

After several minutes, the silence was getting was getting to Jackie.

"Right, then, that's enough brooding," she said firmly, crossing her arms and tucking her fingers in against her sides to keep them warm. "You want to tell me why you aren't going after her?"

The Doctor tucked his own hands into his pockets. "I don't think she wants to talk to me," he said evenly.

Jackie shook her head. "Doesn't matter what she wants. It's what she needs, and you need, too."

"I don't want to force her to do anything. No matter what the other me said, I don't want to be her…responsibility."

Jackie snorted and muttered under her breath, "Dunno why not; you both need a bloody keeper." There was a moment of palpable silence, broken only by the eerie wailing of the wind over the eaves of the lean-to.

"You know," said Jackie as she tugged the collar of her coat up, "they don't make self-help books on how to handle relationships with aliens."

"Oh, sure they do," said the Doctor. He stared out at the fields of beach grass with a tight smile. "Jump forward a few millennia, and they're practically flying off the shelves."

"Doctor," said Jackie quietly. She waited until he turned to look at her. "That girl nearly broke herself to pieces trying to get back to you."

The silence hung between them again, and he swallowed. "I didn't want her to do that," he said softly. "I just…I wanted her to be happy. I still want that."

"I know. But still, to pieces. And it weren't just the injuries, and yeah," she said, holding his gaze with her soft, blue eyes, "there were plenty of those."

He swallowed again and looked away.

"But every step of the way, she questioned herself. 'Would the Doctor approve of this, would he be mad that I'm not living a 'fantastic life', would he say I'm being selfish.' Tore herself to bits over it." Jackie shook her head. "A whole universe away, you were still her compass, still in every one of her thoughts. It was only once the stars started going out that she knew what she had to do. And after that, there was no stopping her."

"She's brilliant," he said hoarsely. "Rose has always been brilliant."

"Yes," she agreed. "But like I said, no books on what to do when the one man you love is suddenly two people."

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair. "It's all a bit new for me, too, Jackie," he said impatiently, but Jackie didn't seem to be paying attention to his discomfort.

"Pete 'n me," she mused in a seeming non sequitur. She had a faraway look in her eyes. "The first Pete. I don't think we'd have made it." She turned her face away, looked out toward the sea.

"No?" the Doctor enquired politely when it was clear that she expected a response. He thought of messy flats, daft little schemes, and harsh words shouted over a sleeping baby, and he privately agreed with her.

"And I don't think the Pete from this world 'n me woulda done any better." She sighed. "I mean, if we'd met in the same way, and all. It's funny," she said, twisting toward him so that just her shoulder rested against the lean-to, "'Cause he was the one. Out of all the men, he was the one I loved. Still do, come to think of it. My old Pete." She smiled softly, the pain of the memory softened by time. "But it took the loss of him, and the loss of me for him, I s'pose, to show us how to pull all the pieces together. How to manage the give and take."

The Doctor looked at her, took in the contented look of a woman fulfilled. "I'm glad it worked out for you, Jackie," he said, and he meant that sincerely. It was his policy to avoid following up on the results of his own meddling, even though that meant things tended to come back around and bite him in the arse. Still, it was nice, every once and a while, to know that he'd done it right. "A happily ever-after," he sighed, tipping his head back and closing his eyes against the grey of the sky.

"No," she said simply, firmly. "That's not what it is at all. Don't you ever listen?" When he blinked in surprise, Jackie just shook her head at him. "Daft one, you are. It's not a fairy tale; that's not how it works. It takes effort, every day. You have to work out how to manage the back and forth, how to be together and separate." She poked him in the shoulder. "How to be different and still _equal_." She prodded him again for emphasis on the last word. "And what about you, Doctor? Do you understand that?"

He frowned. "Is that what you think this is? Why we brought her back here? Because she's not _equal_?" He shook his head in contempt of that idea. "You're the one who doesn't understand. And I thought you of all people would be happy she's here."

"I am," Jackie answered. "Oh, believe me, I am. Happy and grateful, both. But if I've learned anything about my daughter, it's that she has her own mind. You took her choice away. Again." She tilted her head at him. "I'd have thought you'd have learned better than that by now. It sure has never worked before."

"She had a choice," he protested. "She could have…we didn't…"

"Maybe," Jackie allowed, "but it wasn't very gracefully done."

"It was painful," he bit. "For everyone."

Jackie just shrugged. "Life is pain," she quoted. "Anyone who says differently is selling something."

"That so?" he snapped, feeling defensive. "I thought you finally had it all worked out. Put all the pieces together."

"What I've worked out is that anything worth having's worth earning." She gave him a level look. "My girl has done her best to follow you to the ends of the Earth. And beyond. Wouldn't give up, wouldn't take no for an answer. Wouldn't even listen when you told her a thing was impossible. No, instead, she shook them all up at Torchwood, rallied the resources, and built that god-awful Dimension Cannon." She shuddered just a bit, thinking about it. "She walked right across the universe to find you. But Doctor, she's not an infatuated 19-year-old girl anymore."

"I don't know what it is you want me to do," he said, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration. "What's your point?"

"My point is that, this time? It's your turn to chase after her."

The Doctor stared out at where the road reached the horizon. "But what if she won't talk?" he muttered, mostly to himself.

"Well, if she's being horrid, you tell her to check her clock," said Jackie. "Tell her I said so."

He glanced at her. "What clock?"

"Never mind that now. You've got somewhere you need to be." Jackie leaned over to place a hand on his shoulder. "Doctor?" She smiled. "Run!"


	3. All That I Have Endured

Rose walked, the crunch-crunch-crunch of her footsteps on the gravel road surprisingly soothing. As long as she could keep moving, she'd be ok. As long as she had somewhere to go, she wasn't running away.

The wind whipped past her, and she leaned into it, wiping a hand over her stinging cheeks and smarting eyes. A hundred different thoughts were tumbling through her mind, bouncing off the inside of her skull, making her head ache.

_Don't think about it, don't think about it._

But the mantra didn't really help. Thoughts kept creeping in through the cracks. All the mornings, psyching herself up over a piece of toast. Afternoons of pulling her team together, marshalling energies, quelling arguments. Late evenings where she'd sat at her desk, poring over impossible piles of data. And the nights where she and Jake and Mickey had stayed up, staring up at the stars. So tiny, the three of them, standing as a shield against the impenetrable blackness.

What the hell was she supposed to do now?

She had lived, night and day, with the fear that the mission might fail, and the spreading darkness would finally reached Earth. More than once, she had considered the possibility that she might end up stuck somewhere, trapped forever in some other dimension. She'd certainly known there was a chance she would die.

Very, very rarely, she'd even allowed herself to dream that she actually might make it back to him.

But never ever had she thought she'd end up back here, _brought back on purpose_. Dropped off on this wretched beach of all places.

_Never say never ever,_ murmured a familiar echo in her mind.

_Yeah, thanks, Doctor,_ she thought sarcastically. _Way to drive home the point._

The sarcasm was good, though, as both a sword and shield against the hurt. For the past several years, she'd been struggling against the impossible, and she'd found that the only way to deal with it was with the blackest humor mixed with ridiculous optimism. She wasn't sure if that was a particularly human coping mechanism, or if she'd just learned it from _him._ Her mum had certainly made the comparison more than once, usually as part of some unwelcome, cautionary lecture.

Unbidden, the thought popped into her head that now her mum could see for herself whether Rose was really becoming like the Doctor, because she could actually compare them side by side. Because even though he was _gone_, he was still here. And that was really the crux of the problem.

_Congratulations!_ the Universe seemed to say. _Everything you ever wanted, and then some! Awesome job, reunited family, great, heaping piles of money, and a made-to-order man, cut to your exact specifications. Enjoy!_

It was all so simple, really. No barriers to happiness here. All she'd had to do was carve out his heart and chop off his hand.

She shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her.

_Bloody universe. _

_-.-.-.-_

The Doctor sprinted up a small hill, enjoying the rhythmic slap of his trainers on the rough road. He had no idea what he was going to say to Rose when he found her, but it felt so good to be moving, doing something, that he couldn't help but feel that Jackie might, just _might_ be right—it probably was his turn.

He just hoped it wouldn't go to her head.

At the top of the slope, he finally caught sight of Rose, making her way along the long, empty road. She was hunched over, moving against the wind, and she looked miserable.

Not really the most promising of signs.

He cocked an eye at the skies, hoping for an alien invasion—preferably a species with a penchant for swords. _Nothing like a good duel to convince Rose Tyler you're the man you say you are_, he thought. _Of course, aliens never invade when you want them too. Oh no, they wait until you're trying to impress a pretty girl with a nice Victorian Christmas or take her to a rock concert—Elvis or maybe Ian Dury. Really, they aren't too fussed._

He raked a hand through his hair.

_Bloody aliens_.

The blustering wind was drowning out all sound, such that Rose didn't hear him approach until he was quite close, and the Doctor was too caught up in planning what he was going to say to actually say anything. So it was something of a shock to everyone involved when Rose suddenly whipped around, drawing a weapon from a side pocket with a smooth, practiced movement.

"Hold it right there," she said.

The Doctor's hands went up automatically—he had a ridiculous amount of experience with this sort of thing, after all. "Just me," he said, eyebrows at maximum lift and his eyes wide. He'd forgotten how she'd carried a gun. "Don't shoot. I come in peace."

Rose took a deep breath as she pulled her weapon back. "Holy hell. D'you have to go sneaking up on people? Couldn't give some warning?"

The Doctor lowered his hands slowly. "I see that Torchwood hasn't changed much," he said, ignoring her question and eyeing the weapon in her hand. "Nice gun. Not as big as your other, but more portable, I suppose."

Her lips pursed as she flipped the weapon over and slipped it back into her pocket. "This one's stun-only," she informed him. "Does that meet with your approval? 'Course, the other one wasn't." She tossed her hair back. "Y'know, the big one. The one I used to shoot the Dalek that was aiming at Donna's family. That all right with you?"

The Doctor winced, not so much at the thought of the gun as of Rose and Wilf and Sylvia in a firefight with a Dalek. And it had been a long time, but oh, how he remembered that feeling: the weight of a weapon, the searing heat of an explosion, and the acrid stink of burning abominable flesh. But all he said was, "I'm sorry."

"Oh, you always say that," she groused. She tucked her hands into her pockets. "So what'd you want, anyway?"

"Er," said the Doctor, fumbling. Somehow, this didn't seem like the moment to say 'I thought we should have a talk about our relationship.' He decided to go with the opening Jackie had suggested. "Your mum said that you might need to check your clock." When this only resulted in a fierce glare, he raised his hands. "Don't kill the messenger: I don't even know what she meant."

Rose kicked at the gravel moodily. "Fine," she snapped and tugged up the edge of her jacket. There was a small digital clock attached to her belt, although, the Doctor noticed, it seemed to be functioning as a stopwatch, counting up. It had three tiny lights—green, yellow, and red—all lit up, and the red one was blinking. Rose frowned down at it. "Twenty-three and a half," she grumbled.

The Doctor looked perplexed. "Twenty-three and a half what?" he asked.

"Hours," said Rose unhelpfully. When it was clear from his expression that he wasn't going to let it go, she huffed. "Since I last slept." She tried to smother another bitchy comment, because his expression was everything she didn't want; she'd had more than enough of people telling her what she shouldn't do. What she _couldn't_ do—including him.

Not a one of them had been right.

"Don't look like that," she snapped, her temper getting the better of her. "It's been a busy day, remember? And you're the one always complaining that humans sleep too much. 'Sides, what would you recommend—I take a nap while the universe goes to hell?" She tugged her jacket back down. "Traveling through parallels does a number on your circadian rhythm cycles, even worse than regular time travel, because time moves at different speeds in different universes. Sometimes, it makes it hard to get regular sleep, that's all. It's not a big deal."

The Doctor swallowed the lecture that had popped, unbidden, to the tip of his tongue, all about the effects of sleep deprivation on neurotransmitter levels in the human brain. She clearly didn't want to hear it, and anyway, he didn't think she'd have any chance of understanding it, what with her neurotransmitter levels being so low.

He cleared his throat. "What do the lights mean?"

Judging from her expression, the question wasn't any more welcome than the lecture would have been. "They're reminders," she said bluntly. "When the light's green, everything's fine. When it's yellow, I'm supposed to take into consideration that sleep deprivation is harmful to judgment and therefore not dismiss out of hand the concerns of others." This was said in a drone, as though it was something she'd memorized by rote. "If it's red, I'm supposed to sleep as soon as it is safe to do so, and if someone I trust tells me that I am acting irrationally, I have to stop, take a breath, and seriously consider the possibility that they are correct."

She glanced at him, somewhat abashed. "Pete made me start using it after I threw a coffee pot out a window."

The Doctor smothered a smile. "Ah. Well, that doesn't sound so bad, really. Not really a fan of coffee, myself."

"I was in the Torchwood Tower at the time. On the twenty-sixth floor."

This time, the smile would not be denied. "Right. And knowing Torchwood, it was probably the very latest in misappropriated alien coffee pots."

Rose shrugged. "Might've been," she allowed. "R & D usually gets the good alien gear, though, and they're total pigs for coffee." She twisted her toe in the gravel, looking down. "So, am I acting irrationally?" she asked in a softer voice.

He didn't answer her right away, waited until her eyes flickered up to meet his. "Not really," he said softly. "Like you said, it's been one hell of a day."

She just snorted and turned her head away.

"Is this really such a bad outcome?" he asked quietly. "You and me, here together?"

"No, I think this is a brilliant plan," she bit. "Trapping you here, on one planet for how long? Years, at the very least? What could possibly go wrong? S'not like you'll go mad with boredom or anything." She shook her head in disgust. "I give it six months, on the outside, before you start toppling world governments. Less than a year before you're trying to take over the whole planet. Well, at least I'll have plenty to keep me busy, foilin' your plans and all." She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, and it was almost a challenge.

"Do you really think you could?" he asked with one eyebrow raised, halfway between amusement and arrogance. He really wasn't planning on world domination in any form (honestly!), but something about her standing there in her leather jacket, one hand cocked on her hip almost made him want to try—if only so that he could watch her, in her all-grown-up magnificence, as she tried to stop him.

Plus, he had a feeling that handcuffs might feature prominently in that scenario.

However, Time Lord Superiority probably wasn't the best card to play at this juncture, at least judging by the outraged noise coming from Rose. He held his hands up.

"Not planning on toppling any governments. I promise," he assured her. "Er, shall we get on with the walk?"

Rose didn't seem ready to move yet. "What about my mum?"

"Oh, she's all right," the Doctor scoffed. "There's nobody out here, and even if there were, Jackie Tyler? She's a force to be reckoned with, and, you may remember, I am something of an expert on those."

He was rewarded with the faintest curve of her lips. "S'pose so." She started walking, and he fell into step beside her.

They walked in silence for several minutes before he decided to press his case once more.

"Rose," he started tentatively, "I know you said you understand, about me being the same man and all, same thoughts, same memories, same feelings, clearly the same gob, everything the same, well, except for the one heart and the one mystery thing that you won't tell me—"

"Yes, Doctor, I understand."

"Do you?" he demanded. "Do you really? Because you're not…"

"Yes, I do," she snapped, interrupting him before his rant could get started. "I might even understand better than you, in fact." At his incredulous look, she huffed and crossed her arms. "You can't spend years jumping through parallel dimensions and not have at least a passing familiarity with the idea that multiple versions of a person can exist. You're like a parallel version of you, one with only a .01 Ty variance."

"But I'm not a parallel me at all," he said, frustrated. "I'm ME. This hand," he said, holding up his right and waving it in her face, "it's the original one, Rose. The same one you took when I said, 'Run!' Well, more or less, since the regeneration sort of changed everything. It is the same one you took _after_ I regenerated and had to remind you about how I took your hand and said 'Run!'" Then he frowned. "What's a…tie variance?"

Her face reddened a little as she brushed her hair out of her eyes. "T-Y. It's a scale for measuring the disparity between parallel universes. It's based on measurements of the resonant frequency of matter at the quantum level. It gives the operator a rough expectation of the delta from the OU—that's the origin universe."

"Clever," he said, smiling. "Though it's been done before. The Time Lords had something similar. Perhaps I should compare notes with your mathematicians, eh?"

The look she gave him seemed a bit…inscrutable. "I s'pose," she said.

"Why 'Ty'?" he asked, curious.

She looked a bit impatient. "'Cause it's the Tyler Scale Equation," she said.

"They named it after Pete?" he asked.

"No."

"They named it after you?" He grinned. "Even better."

She glared at him. "I named it after me," she snapped, and his grin faltered.

"Really?"

"No need to sound surprised, Doctor," she muttered. "Anyway, I didn't do it all on my own. I was just the one who postulated it." She deliberately over-pronounced the longer word. "There's still a team of mathematicians for you to talk to. Actually, they're the ones that insisted on the name—I was all for calling it Theoretical Actuality Relative Disparity Information System. Or…well, something to that effect."

The Doctor smiled a little at that. She had grown, his Rose: expanded her clever mind and stretched all those latent abilities, the potential for which he'd seen so long ago. He wanted badly to just sit and hear her stories, to see her at work, to get to know this new, fantastic version of her.

He stretched out a hand to take one of hers.

Rose tucked her hands in her pockets.

He stopped, the air knocked out of his chest like he'd hit a brick wall. This wasn't how this was supposed to work. He was the Doctor, and she was Rose, and when he reached out a hand for hers, she took it. It was practically a law of nature. Except…

Except, he wasn't the Doctor, at least not the original. He was a copy, almost the same except for some pesky, extra humanity and that one mysterious detail that she wouldn't share.

A few steps later, and Rose stopped and turned to face him, eyebrows raised. "Coming?"

The Doctor tucked his own hands into his pockets, alongside his hurt. "If you understand that we're the same, what's the problem? What's the one thing that's different between me and him, Rose? Because I honestly don't know."

She took her time looking at him. Taking the measure of him. "The difference," she said quietly, "is that he had a choice, and you didn't. He chose to leave. So you tell me, Doctor," she asked with eyes so very cold, "since you're the same man, when the time comes, when you have a choice—what will you decide?"


	4. Here in Thy Arms Is Cured

**A/N: Ladies and gentlemen, please buckle your seatbelts and keep your arms, legs, and emotions inside the rollercoaster at all times.**

_She took her time looking at him. Taking the measure of him. "The difference," she said quietly, "is that he had a choice, and you didn't. He chose to leave. So you tell me, Doctor," she asked with eyes so very cold, "since you're the same man, when the time comes, when you have a choice—what will you decide?"_

For a moment, his face was still, blank. Then his eyebrows crept down, his brow furrowed. "You think I don't want to be here. That I drew the short end of the stick."

"The short end of the…" Rose raked a hand through her hair. "No, Doctor, I don't. I don't think that I'm the short end of anything. I do think that this was all _his_ arrangement, though. His decision. Just like always." She fisted her hands into her hips.

"That's not how it went, Rose."

"No?" She tilted her head to study him, her voice deceptively calm. "You two have a little conversation, then? Work everything out in advance?"

"Er…" said the Doctor, with the sudden feeling that he was treading on a minefield. "Well, no." He scratched the back of his neck. "We didn't talk about it, per say."

"But you knew what he was going to do," she prompted.

"Well…"

"Because you're essentially the same person, and you'd have done the same in his place." She shook her head and turned away from him.

He studied the lines of her back and the bright flight of her hair in the wind. After a moment, he gave his answer in a quiet voice. "Yes."

For the first time, her voice broke. "And you couldn't be bothered to talk it over with me first?"

"Rose, there wasn't—"

"Don't say that there wasn't time," she snapped, interrupting him and whipping around, and he was relieved to see that her eyes were dry. "Don't you dare. The hell there wasn't. You just didn't want to have to do it—give me a choice, or say a proper goodbye, or anything."

The Doctor scowled. "Don't you think your anger might be just a wee bit misdirected here?" he demanded. "Because you're shouting at me, but I'm not the one who didn't say goodbye. Well, all right, I didn't say goodbye, but that's only because I'm not the one who's leaving. The point is, it seems like _he's _the one who's really upset you."

She stared at him in disbelief, her mouth slightly open. "Same man, remember? Just so you know—that cuts both ways."

He groaned in frustration, throwing his arms up as he spun around. But before he could come up with a pithy rejoinder, Rose started in again.

"Why was _this_ the solution?" she demanded. "I mean, I know all about the problems—I'm intimately familiar with _all_ the problems of _us_. But why just drop you and me off here? There were other options."

"Other options, meaning that you could stay with _him_," he ground out, feeling the prick of jealousy.

"It's not that," she protested, throwing her hands up in frustration. "I don't mean…I wasn't trying to choose between you. You're both _you. _It's just," she paused, swallowing. "It's just I'm so sick of the limitations. You telling me I can't—I can't stay with you on Satellite Five, I can't stay with you at Canary Wharf, I can't cross over from this world to that. To hell with that!" she shouted suddenly. "To hell with you, any version of you, saying that my life is so small, that my fate is to stay at home and _wither and die_. Because I don't believe a word of it, any of it. All that means is that I'm just one more way for the universe to hurt you, but that's not what I am!"

She jabbed a finger into his chest. "And you can't sit there and tell me that there weren't ways around it, because I know there are. We saw them."

"No, you're right, there are ways around it," he snapped. "Which method would you prefer? Nanogenes? Not a bad choice—they'll keep you _looking_ young forever, or at least until your brain cells wear out and your nervous system collapses. Still, you might last a good 150 years."

He turned away from her and started to pace. "Of course, if you want to avoid that unpleasantness, you have to let the little buggers rebuild your brain, but to do that, they have to wipe out a lot of your stored memories. So sure, you'd be twenty years old again, but without all the knowledge, personality, and memories you'd gained. And you can't wait until the end of your life to do it, either, because the nanogenes need a brain young enough that it hasn't sustained regular cellular damage. Forty-five at the latest. Does that appeal to you?" he asked, whirling around to face her. "We could have lived a lovely twenty years together and then, bam! No more you, and I get to start all over again with a lovely, fresh Rose Tyler who doesn't remember me and possibly can't tie her own shoelaces."

Before she could speak, he started moving again. "Oh, and if you really don't like either of those options, there's always the John Lumic method—you remember, don't you? We'd just rip out your brain and shove it in a metal body. Sound good?"

Rose shook her head. "That's not…those aren't the only—"

"There are a few other ways," he interrupted. "Things that can prolong life, but not indefinitely. Maybe add a century or so—a big difference compared to your lifespan, but not compared to m…_his_. And along the way, you'd have to sacrifice little bits of your humanity here and there, slice off a few parts and pieces." He came to a stop in front of her and softened his tone. "In the end, everything has its price. There is no perfect solution."

He raised a hand to rest gently on her shoulder. "You shouldn't hate me for not doing those things to you, Rose," he said softly as he toyed with the ends of her hair. He dipped his head down so that he could look into her lowered eyes. "You should hate me for thinking of them at all."

"I don't hate you," she said quietly, shaking her head in rejection of that idea even as she pulled back. "I could never. But," she said, crossing her arms and raising her head, "that doesn't make it right. You should have talkedwith me about it. So many secrets, Doctor. So many things you knew about but never told me—"

"Well, that's the thing about that pesky age-gap," he said flippantly, biting back annoyance. Now she was just being bloody difficult. "A lot you can learn about the universe given an extra eight centuries and change."

"Oh?" She gave him a meaningful look. "Anything in particular you'd like to share?"

He raked his hands through his hair in frustration. "Of all the—look, I'm sorry, all right? I'm sorry I, he, _we_ didn't talk to you about it. I'm sorry for all the life-altering, _life-saving _decisions I've made on your behalf. But I'm not hiding anything from you."

"Really?" Rose snorted. "How about the fact that Jack's _immortal_?" Her voice was heavy with accusation. "That seems like, oh, I dunno, at least a little bit relevant. Why didn't you ever say?"

The Doctor's face went carefully blank. "It wasn't something you needed to know."

"Oh, bollocks," she snapped. "I made that happen. Me!"

"Rose," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't tell you because it wasn't your fault. You couldn't control it. And I didn't want you blaming yourself."

She hugged herself, fingers gripping at the sleeves of her jacket, and turned away from him. "You're wrong," she said softly.

"What do you mean?"

She stared out across the grass, the seemingly infinite rippling waves of it. "I did it on purpose," she said softly, just barely audible over the wind. "Didn't remember until I saw him alive again on the Crucible and thought, 'Oh, well, there's Jack, of course he's still alive.'"

The Doctor waited a moment before speaking. "Why did you?" he asked in a low voice.

Rose laughed unpleasantly. "'Cause I was a god with only a few minutes to live," she said. "And there were so many things to try to fix. I needed a…a champion. An avatar. Jack said I was worth fighting for, and I gave him a million lives to prove it." She turned, glancing up at him. "Can you imagine anything so cruel?" She shivered and wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

The Doctor swallowed hard at the thought, but laid a hand on her shoulder. "He'll be all right, Rose." And he believed it. Jack was nothing if not resilient.

"What else did I do?" she whispered, ignoring the comfort he offered. "I stretched my hands out into time and space, twisted reality, changed everything. Did I…" Her voice broke.

"Did you what?" he asked anxiously, stepping closer to her.

She turned to look at him, her eyes anguished. "Did I cause this? All of it? Did I…create you? Trap you here? You said, when we were on the Crucible, about the time lines, and that something had closed the TARDIS doors, and then that Dalek said—"

He frowned and interrupted her babble. "Which Dalek? Time lines? Doors? What are you talking about?"

"Oh." She blinked. "Right. That wasn't you; it was the other you." She closed her eyes for a moment, puzzling it out. "You don't remember anything after the partial regeneration, do you?"

"Not until I woke up on the TARDIS," he confirmed.

"Well." She cleared her throat. "When we landed on the Crucible, we were leaving the TARDIS, but the doors shut all on their own, and Donna was trapped inside. He—the other you—asked if Dalek Caan, the one who saw time, was the one who closed the TARDIS doors. And later, you said someone had been manipulating the time lines for ages, and the Dalek said, no, this was always going to happen. That he'd just nudged it along." She hugged herself. "Was it me, then? Did I write this future? Did I cause it all to happen—Torchwood and Jack and the Doctor-Donna? Even Canary Wharf?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to deny only to shut it again. He couldn't offer her useless platitudes or denials. The truth was that he didn't know the answer. The image of her wielding the power of the Time Vortex, weaving her fingers through time like it was water, was etched on his mind. He thought of the market on Shan Shen—watching the words on every visible surface rearrange themselves into her moniker. He remembered thinking that something was binding Donna and him together, wondering what it could possibly be.

No, he couldn't tell her that it wasn't possible. It was.

She seemed to have reached her own conclusions, and she began pacing feverishly back and forth. "The Sycorax—they cut off your hand, but luckily just in time for you to grow a new one. And Jack just happens to find it, because he's there to find it, because I made him immortal." She ticked off the list of facts on her fingers. "The TARDIS just happens to slip 'accidentally' through a crack in reality, and we end up in Pete's World for the first time—you know, a world where my dad's a success and alternate-reality Jackie ends up dead. Canary Wharf, and I land in Pete's World with mum and Mickey, one big happy family. Pete's World runs ahead of our original universe, which gives me foreknowledge of the stars going out. Meanwhile, Donna meets you just in time for the Racnos invasion and then meets you a second time, later on. You get hit by a Dalek, but not fatally—because again, Jack's there to save the day. You pour your regeneration energy into the handy spare hand. Something mysteriously traps Donna inside the TARDIS with the hand, and there we are."

She wheeled around to face him. "What if I caused it all? Made a perfect ending, all for myself, at the expense of everyone else—Jack, Mickey, my mum, you. And I messed around with Donna's head, made her half-Time Lord." She grimaced again at the thought of forcing that sort of change on someone else, even if Donna had seemed to enjoy it. She glanced up at the Doctor. "At least they'll be together. Do you think I did that so he'd have a…a perfect companion?" Her eyes were begging him to affirm.

He didn't say anything, but a shadow seemed to fall across his face. Rose's eyes grew wide. "What is it?" she demanded. "What else is there?" Her hands started to shake. "Oh, god, is she going to be all right?"

He didn't answer, just swallowed, as he thought of brilliant Donna Noble who was so soon going to be stripped of her memories.

"That's what Caan said—that one of us was going to die. Is it Donna? Did I do this? Answer me!" Rose demanded, clutching at the front of his suit.

He placed his hands over hers. "She's not going to die," he forced out. "She's going to…forget. Forget everything about me. He'll take her memories from her, seal up the Time Lord part of her mind to save her. But she won't die. Rose," he said, because she was staring at him in horror, "he will save her, I promise you."

"Oh god," she said, letting go of him and slipping down onto her knees. "Oh, dear god."

He knelt down beside her. "Rose, listen to me." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. "I don't know if you caused any of it or not, but you can't blame yourself. We can't know what you saw in the Time Vortex, out of all the possibilities. What you might have changed or why. What terrible things you might have prevented. Rose…" He reached a hand down to grasp her chin, nudging it up so that he could look into her eyes, willing her to believe him. "If you made things turn out the way they did—and I'm not saying that it's for certain—but if you did, you did so for a reason, and I refuse to believe that it was just self-interest."

"But you can't know for sure," she whispered brokenly.

"Yes, I can," he said, smoothing her hair back. "Oh yes, I can because I know you. Listen to me, Rose," he said, giving her a little shake when she started to sag against him, "_I know you. _I've seen a lot in my time. And if I had to pick someone, anyone out of the whole universe, to act as an all-powerful deity, I'd choose you any day. If I believe in anything, Rose Tyler," he said with a half-smile, "I believe in you."

She leaned her forehead against his, and for one peaceful moment, he thought he'd managed to comfort her. Then she pulled back. "But…but that's not all," she said. "That's not the end of it. Because if Donna's gone, that means he'll be alone again."

With a frantic energy, she pushed to her feet, pulling away from his hold. "Oh, god," she said, pacing, "Donna's gone, and he's alone again. Oh, he's going to do something so stupid. One way or another, he's going to go too far, and he's going to get himself killed."

The Doctor stood up, stretching out his hands, trying to calm her. "Rose, he'll be all right," he insisted. "He knew what he was doing."

She stopped and looked at him. "Will he find someone else, d'you think? Another companion?"

He paused, stuck between the urge to comfort her and the need to tell her the truth.

"He won't," she whispered. "He's lost everyone now, and he just _won't. _And he'll end up getting killed."

"You can't know that—"

"Yes, I can," she shouted, suddenly enraged. "I bloody well can! Because you were dead! You died, in Donna's parallel, fighting the Racnos. You never met her, and you were alone, and you _died. _You told me you would be all right, promised me on this same, god-forsaken beach_, you promised me_, and you just LET yourself die!"

Her face was flushed and her eyes were wild. The Doctor fell back a step as she pressed forward. "I had to interrupt the autopsy, you bastard. I stood over your dead body in the UNIT morgue. All those times," she rasped, gripping the lapels of his suit and shaking him. "All those times, you moaning about the pitiful human lifespan. How horrible it would be for you to watch me _wither_ and _die_, Doctor, but in the end, I was the one who had to carry your _broken corpse_ back to the TARDIS. Imagine," she said, her voice breaking at last, "imagine seeing that happen to somebody you love."

Her head tipped forward into his chest as she finally broke down into tears. Great wracking sobs shook her narrow frame as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close. "I'm sorry," he murmured over and over into her ear as he rocked her. "Oh, Rose. I'm so sorry."

For several long minutes, he held her as she cried, and he wondered just how long she'd been carrying all this anger and worry, guilt and pain. He pressed his cheek against her hair and ran his hands over her back as she spent her terrible grief against his chest.

He thought he was beginning to see what Jackie meant: he had tried so hard to protect her, but in the end, he hadn't been able to shield her from any of this. All he'd done was exchange one kind of pain for another. Every attempt to keep her from harm had torn a little piece out of her heart, and then, in the end, she'd just jumped right back into the fray.

Give and take. Different but still equal. Yes, maybe Jackie had a point after all.

As Rose grew calmer and her weeping quieted, the Doctor took a deep breath. "You're right," he said softly. He gave a half-laugh. "You'd think it'd choke me to say so, but you are right. I should have told you. I should have told you all of it—Jack, and Donna, and what we were planning, and all." He ran a hand over his face. "Should have given you a choice at Canary Wharf. And while I don't really regret sending you home from Satellite Five, I should have at least told you what I was going to do." He blew out a breath. "…And I probably should have given you a heads up about the regeneration thing, come to think of it."

Rose gave a weak, watery laugh against his chest. "You sure you're the same man?" she asked, lifting up her head. She wiped a hand over her face, drying away her tears.

He just smiled and traced the apple of her cheek with his thumb. "Better?"

Rose let out a shuddering sigh. "Yeah. Better. Sorry for that. It's been awhile since I…"

"I understand," he said. "Sometimes, the weight of the universe just gets a bit much to carry by yourself." His lips twisted in a wry smile. "That's part of why it's better with two."

"Yeah." She took another deep breath. "I just…" She looked down. "I don't know how to live with all this," she admitted. "I'm afraid for him, and I feel like I'm being asked to sacrifice his happiness for my own."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "I see." He looked thoughtful. "I can't…hmm." He paused, frowning. He didn't want to upset her any more, but it was time to start being truthful. "I can't promise you that he'll always be OK. You're right—he might be a bit…reckless. But I don't think he'll die." He mulled it over. "You should know, this…arrangement is not without its compensations for him." When she just looked at him oddly, he smiled a little and continued. "You remember how when the TARDIS lands somewhere, we become part of the current timeline, yes? Part of events?"

Rose nodded.

"And you understand the concept of causality, how you can't go back and unravel events that are requisite preludes to your own current position in time. For example, you can't go back and alter what happened with Queen Victoria in 1879, or at Canary Wharf. Well, I should say, you _shouldn't_ do that, but of course, you know that it is possible—you just risk causing a paradox, doing irreparable damage to the fabric of time, and that, of course, has all sorts of nasty consequences, which—"

"Yes, Doctor," Rose interrupted patiently, "I remember. Vividly."

"Er, right. So my point is, if for example, you'd stayed on the other Earth in linear time, at some point or another, you would…be gone," he explained, still fumbling over the concept of her mortality. "And inevitably, his timeline would encounter that fact—he'd read about it or hear about it or meet your great-great-grandchildren or something. In fact, there'd probably be a great, gold statue of you in the middle of London. A shrine to you slap-bang in the middle of Trafalgar Square."

She chuckled, which he felt was a promising sign.

"But this way, staying in a parallel universe?" He smiled softly, sadly. "For him, you will never die. Separate universes means separate timelines. Non-convergent realities. Your story never ends for him, because he will never stand over your grave. He can think of you here, existing forever, Rose, because for him, that's true. It was the only real way to make you immortal without sacrificing anything.

"He gets your forever, Rose. I get your everyday." He suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I mean, if you want."

Rose looked at him, tracing the oh-so-familiar lines of his face with her eyes. She had been fighting against their separation for so long, battling fate and time and parallel realities, and it was hard to let go of that struggle. But maybe it was finally time to concede, time to take the gift he'd offered her and see his sacrifice for what it was: An act of love.

Because even though he was gone…he was still right here.

Looking up into his eyes, she gave her answer. "Yeah," she said softly, sincerely, placing a hand over his single heart, "I do."

A smile, bright, brilliant, and joyous, broke out on his face. "Oh, good," he said, his voice lilting a little in relief. "It would have been a bit awkward otherwise."

Rose couldn't help it; she giggled. The Doctor didn't seem to mind, though. He reached up, captured her hand resting on his lapel before it could escape. "Ah," he sighed happily, threading his fingers through hers. "That's better."

She studied their joined hands. "It is," she agreed, feeling more content than she'd been in years. "It really is."

With a little tug, the Doctor started them both walking again.

"So," he asked, eyeing her, "I was wondering—and, you understand, I don't want to rush you, and I'm really just asking this purely for information's sake—but do you think, if I were to confess my inner feelings in a dramatic fashion, there could be a chance you'd kiss me again?"

Rose chuckled. "Might do," she said, half-teasing. "Although I don't know if that kind of talk really helps your 'we're-the-same-man' case. No way he'd have said _that_ out loud."

The Doctor looked at her oddly. "Well, it's not really necessary, is it? I mean, honestly, does it need saying?" he asked, clearly a little puzzled.

Rose's mouth fell open as a gust of wind blew over them, and it rushed in to fill the space between her teeth and tongue, temporarily robbing her of speech. "You did NOT just say that to me," she said at last, wavering between aggravation and hilarity. She tugged her hand free from his. "Wait, what am I thinking, of course you did." And just when she thought they were getting on the same damn page… She fought the urge to scoop up a handful of gravel off the road and pelt him with rocks. "You are such a bloody idiot!"

He blinked. "I'm the idiot?" he said incredulously. "It's not exactly like it was some enormous secret. How is it that every single other sentient entity in the universe seemed to know except you?"

"What the hell are you on about?" she demanded.

"Seems like everywhere we went, someone was announcing that I was in love with you."

She shook her head. "Oh, please—"

But he threw his hands up in the air, interrupting her. "Everyone! Everywhere we went! The Dalek. In Utah. Well, it went and said it outright, didn't it? And Adam—a person stupid enough to get a bloody hole carved into his head, and even he knew. Then your father, then Jack," he listed, waving his arms for emphasis. "Jack had reams of advice for me on the topic! Margaret the Slitheen, she sure knew, that's why she held you hostage. And the same with the Daleks again…"

"You're absolutely mad!"

"Oh, and I'm pretty sure that Harriet Jones cottoned on at some point, what with me being so reluctant to save the world for fear of losing you. Then there was Mickey; well, he probably knew all along. Reinette knew—I could see it in her eyes when she sent me back to you. Cassandra knew, Queen Victoria knew, the crew of the Sanctuary Base knew, your mum," he paused and wagged his finger in emphasis, "your MUM knew, Rose. Your. MUM. Also Satan," he added as an afterthought.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted again, holding his arms wide and turning away from her. "Then you were gone, so you'd think everyone would stop commenting on it, but NO! Everywhere I went, people saying, 'Oh, so sorry to hear that the love of your life is gone. How's the broken heart doing?' Donna, she knew, the bloody Carrionites knew— they made up poetry just for the occasion!"

Rose squinted her eyes; the wind—just the wind, she was sure— was making them tear up again. "Who are the Carrionites?"

"Witches," he said succinctly over his shoulder.

"What, seriously?" she asked, taken aback.

He nodded and then turned to grin at her conspiratorially. "I met Shakespeare! It was brilliant!"

Rose bit her lip, trying to not smile in return, but the Doctor seemed to sense that he was close to victory. He stepped toward her, eyes dark.

"Martha knew," he said, reaching out to take her hand. "It's why she left. Oh, and I got to hear about it from Jack all over again. And then Donna some more, well, Donna several times more, actually—"

"Doctor," she interrupted.

"Rose," he replied, pulling her closer.

She sniffled. "It's not that I didn't think, didn't _know_…it's just…"

"Sometimes it's nice to hear it?" he murmured.

"Yeah," she exhaled.

"Yeah," he agreed, sliding his arms around her waist, coming home.

"I love you," she said, burrowing her head against his chest.

He rested his chin on the top of her head. "Well, and quite right, too."

She jerked back in his arms to glare at his cheeky grin. "Seriously?" she growled, but, he was pleased to see, she was fighting a smile.

He laughed and cupped her face. "I love you," he said. "Oh, Rose Tyler, how I love you, and if you want to hear it, I'll say it every day."

Her lips curved up as she closed her eyes. "Think I like the sound of that."

"Good," he whispered, leaning forward, his breath washing over her lips. And then, because he could, he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.

-.-.-.-.-

Eventually, they came to the realization that a freezing cold beach wasn't really the most conducive place for romantic activities. Also, Rose remembered rather guiltily, her mother was still waiting for them back at the lean-to. Hand in hand, they started down the road to town.

After several minutes of quiet, the Doctor glanced at Rose. She was biting her lip.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked.

"I'm just wondering," she said. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to call Pete, get a car, pick up your mum, and then get ourselves a hotel room for the night," he answered. When her eyebrows shot up, he hastened to explain. "No, no, no! I mean, so you can sleep. Just sleep. That's all. Nothing else. Nothing else _at all._"

For some reason, this wasn't helping the eyebrow situation, so the Doctor did what he did best—he kept talking. "I mean, that's not to say that…it's not that I wouldn't want…I mean…at some point…" he trailed off awkwardly, rubbing his free hand over the back of his neck.

Rose just smirked at him.

"Twenty-three and a half hours," he blurted out. "Since you've slept. That's what I meant."

"More like twenty-four and change now," she said, glancing down at her clock.

"Right. Got to get you some quality shut-eye."

"Sounds good," she said, sounding amused. "But what I meant was, what are we going to do here on Earth? We're still stuck here, on this one single planet for however long it takes to grow a TARDIS, if that's even possible." She shook her head. "I still don't see how this is going to work. Doesn't this bother you?"

The Doctor grinned at her. "Nope," he said, popping the 'p.' "This is a grand adventure in an undiscovered country. I've lived in linear time before, you know, but never like this." When she looked confused, he elaborated. "It's like I was saying, about the timelines and causality and all that? Back home, my timeline was woven throughout the universe, through all of time and space. I knew where the fixed points were, the things I couldn't change, but here?" He smiled again. "I've never been to the future here. It's unwritten."

Rose tilted her head, taking in the excitement written across his face. "Right," she said slowly, "but we can't go visit the future, at least not yet. We're still on the slow path for awhile."

He grasped her hand. "But that's the beauty of it," he said cheerfully. "A lovely little…eh," he tipped his head to the side, running the numbers, "let's say, three year vacation with no causality worries. Anything I can think up to do, I can just…do." He waggled his eyebrows.

At this, a slightly alarmed look flitted across Rose's face.

"No, no," he said hastily, "I don't mean _anything_ anything. Just good things."

"Like what?"

"Well," he said, mock-thoughtfully before shooting her a conspiratorial grin. "Ever want to cure tuberculosis? End famines? Stop wars?" He tapped a finger to his head. "A lot of know-how in here, Rose, all at Planet Earth's disposal."

Her mouth dropped open. "But…but we can't just flood the world with…with future knowledge and alien tech," she objected. "I mean, it could do a lot of good, yes, but it could also do a lot of harm."

"Not flood," he said patiently. "Just some nudges, here and there. Carefully. In between growing the TARDIS, which, incidentally, should be a fascinating process, guaranteed to keep me from world-government-toppling boredom."

Rose still looked a little doubtful. "You sure you're not going to end up trying to take over the planet?"

The Doctor grinned. "If I do, I've got you to stop me." He lifted their joined hands, spinning her in a pirouette. "Tell you what, you can be the final arbiter. Keep me on the straight and narrow."

And finally, _finally,_ she laughed, really laughed, bright and golden, such as he hadn't heard in years. "Just like old times."

"Just like old times," he agreed.

"So we're just going to spend a couple of years making the world a better place, then?"

"Rose," he said happily, pulling her close and wrapping her up in his arms, "we're going to make it shine."


End file.
